When Pictures Speak a Thousand Words

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Sometimes words are not necessary, and I love Words!!!! Reading and writing… even running my fingers over a braille note card to feel the letters. I have found that I love pictures as much as I love words, at times they speak much more than I could ever attempt to write. I am learning to see my surroundings differently, still pictures that are more of a silent storyteller. I am not a photographer by no means, but I do enjoy taking pictures, as much as I love to tell a story. These particular pictures speak without words…some are easy to explain, some go much deeper than my words. Pictures really do speak a thousand words… maybe even more.

I begin with the photo above….. sitting in my pew at church, I see it…. a couple “sharing” a single Bible, my heart had an “aaaah” moment. I wondered how much more this couple had shared through their time together? Joy? Pain? Compassion? Whatever the answer was? I knew that in this stolen moment…they were unified, one…..strength for the journey being poured from the pages. I also remembered thinking? wow…. how much I want this moment for me and my own husband in our later years. Love in the most simple, yet complex form.

Although I didn’t actually take this photo? It still speaks. (okay, and it’s my cute niece) Wonder.. how awesome to see everything through the eyes of a child? Everyday brings its own treasure and discovery. The world outside to her is “tangible” … She feels it through the window pane. May we never lose the ability to see our world and the good in those around us. Dream….Wonder…. Believe. I am determined to see beauty in all things, removing the harsh scales that cloud the vision I once knew. Find your inner child today…if only for a moment.

Home… a country road… a photo that not only invokes images, but all of my senses…the smell of wood stoves burning, the crisp mountain air in the fall…the leaves crunching beneath my feet. I can no longer go home without the ache of knowing that many of my loved ones, are no longer there. Home is no longer geographical as much as it has proved to be a place in my heart. Home is what you carry with you, a part of who you were, who you are and what you hope to become… More importantly, it will be what you will leave for someone else….their home, their memories. Make good ones.

I took this one just because I happened to have the camera. It has become one of my favorites. It says.. I love my Daddy. It doesn’t matter that her Daddy is not looking at the camera, I know how he feels about her as much as I know my own soul. It was her unspoken words to me at this moment that makes my heart melt. “He is mine..and I am his” nothing more relevant than her smile. She knows… The joy of being a Daddy’s girl. I already know….I am blessed that she has this bond even longer than I did. They are also mine…my heart.

Of course, I didn’t take this one either… but it was one of my most favorites of my nephews. Brothers that adore one another…. Sibling rivalry may come, but this bond will be lifelong..regardless. Their lives will always be a tapestry with one another, good and bad…regardless what direction their lives take – they will always be anchored. Knowing this already, that they will not always agree or see things the same? I know one thing to be true..they will be solid as stone for each other when it really counts.. I promise. They are the only two people in their mothers’ world that know what her heart sounds like from the inside. They are their father’s anchor to what is important. I see parts of my heart in this picture, the part that I am too far away from in miles. Siblings don’t always adore one another…but when they do? well… it’s a soul space. No matter how many pictures you take.. you see it.

The moment you realize you are capturing a part of your friends “forever” and anticipate the wonderful memories that are still to be made. When you experience the first “beach” wedding and pay no mind to the wind in your hair or the sand in your shoes. The look on a Daddy’s face seeing his little girl happier than happy.. and the simple lyrics to a song that says.. love comes in circles, and love takes its’ own time.. bending and breaking, not taking a straight line”

I end this blog with a photo from our local Relay for Life. It is and has always been one of my favorite words in picture. Without it, well I don’t even think beyond that statement. It is not an option to live without it. If you have never attended one of these events.. you should. Only standing beside the ocean, have I ever felt so small in comparison. It was a humbling experience. Everyone has been affected by this horrible disease in some way or another, but watching the survivor’s walk? Hope becomes more than a word.. more than a picture.. it becomes life. There is nothing better than seeing hope in action. This is real. As my mom would say… “this is where the rubber meets the road” kinda real. It is also one of the best things you can share… beyond photos, beyond words…

Taking pictures of our surroundings does not always require a photo lens. Sometimes it only requires our attention to capture the image and developing them in our hearts. Yeah, that’s the best kind.

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One thought on “When Pictures Speak a Thousand Words”

The last picture and your story of experience… reminds me of watching Holocaust survivors emerge from the ashes… old reels showing them leaving their hades on earth and many of them to find they were the only survivor in their very large family. It also reminds me of the victims of terror in Israel… from the jihads of the 1990’s to the jihad of 2000-2005… the many conflicts and wars… the many rockets terrorists shoot at innocent people; they don’t care who they hit as long as it is a Jew. Occasionally these survivors come together (both Holocaust and victims of terror) in Israel and when they do, it is just as you say… haunting… but after the ghosts of the past try to rise up, there is one thing… one word that appears… not in letters or on a billboard, but in the reality of the life of each survivor who said “they didn’t kill me… I LIVED”… It is a phrase that combines emunah (faith), chaim (life), nechratsut (determination), ma’amad (dignity), hisardut (survival)… and most of all TIKVAH – HOPE!!! People touched by cancer or any other disease that strikes the body are survivors of survivors… walking through the valley of the shadow and coming out alive and with a story to tell. How I wish it were that way for every victim of disease and every victim of human instigated affliction. It is to these we lift our candles of hope to remember… and to never forget…